


A Moment of Reprieve

by Catzgirl



Series: The Grunge Hobo Learns to Trust [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Claiming Bites, Fluff, M/M, Massage, playing with fjord's orc half
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 22:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catzgirl/pseuds/Catzgirl
Summary: Fjord and Caleb decide how invested they are.





	A Moment of Reprieve

**Author's Note:**

> I've been killing myself with my own angst, so I had to write this to revive my soul. It's short but sweet!  
> Set immediately after A Habit for Hyperbole but before The Leaving of Caleb Widogast, can be read as a stand alone!

It's a cozy bed. That's why he's still in it.

He loves the contrast of his green hand across Caleb's pale back, loves to watch the trails of gooseflesh he can create (he  _loves_  it, honestly and truly, more than he should let himself.)

It's a cozy bed and a cozy wizard to share it with. Caleb sleeps on his stomach most nights, says it's habit to keep his vitals shielded, but Fjord suspects it's so that he can wake with Fjord's hands on his back.

Tricky. Tricky, sneaky, adorable human man.

His fingers dance up the vertebrae of Caleb's spine like stepping stones and he loves (honestly and truly  _loves it_ ) the way that Caleb hums, arches his back a little into the ghost of a touch. He lets the blunt end of his fingernails drag across the nape of his neck, list to one side, but carefully avoids the wound.

"It's a mark of—possession," he says, because Caleb had asked, "Orcs are... Well, that's what they do to their," spouses, wives, home-keepers, "Partners."

Avoid the negative connotations. None of those things had been what he'd had in mind the moment that his canine teeth had pierced Caleb's flesh.

(Not that much of anything had been on his mind besides the look in Caleb's eye.

 _I wasn't sure you'd come back_  Caleb had the nerve to say while Fjord was fucking him.)

It'd seemed the time to stake his claim, if ever there was one. But he hadn't asked first, hadn't let Caleb make that decision himself, and he can't stop tearing himself up over having committed this  _violation_ against a man who needs that least of anyone he's ever met.

Caleb hums under his fingers, and he does not touch the wound on his neck but he does massage the swollen skin to either side of it. " _Oh_ ," Caleb sighs, "That is rather nice, actually."

He's not talking about the massage. At least, he's not  _only_  talking about the massage.

Fjord says, "It's sort of a big deal. Orcs deal in power as currency. An orc that provides for many partners is viewed as more powerful." He can see Caleb's face, sees the frown that pulls at his lips even as a blush starts to rise in his cheeks.

"I'm not-" and he swallows, but Fjord swings one leg over Caleb's back, straddles him, starts to rub the tension from the muscles there in earnest, and the groan that rips out of Caleb sets the conversation on hold for a while.

Caleb is tense for a man who's been so thoroughly fucked. Fjord runs his hands lightly over Caleb's jutting shoulder bones, frowns and makes note that they're still in need of breakfast. Then his fingers dig in as he finds a tensed clump of muscles, lets his thumbs rub and smooth the bundle out. "Breathe," he orders quietly, thrums with ( _love_ , truly and honestly) satisfaction as he feels the skin go slack with his minstrations.

Caleb's groans change in pitch, from low whimpering noises to longer, more guttural moans. Whimpers for when Fjord's thumbs  _press_ into his flesh, moans as the muscles flatten and the tension in them disperses. He's tense for a man so thoroughly fucked so recently, and it doesn't hurt Fjord's pride but he cannot let it go, either. Caleb turns to putty in his hands, all liquid heat and simmering, and it's in his voice as Fjord finds the another bit of tension to work on and Caleb continues, "I'm not _ah, oh, that one hurts_ I'm not at all,  _oh yeah, please,_  opposed,  _right there, mmm_ , to that, ah, to that," but he can't quite keep his words straight.

"Shush," Fjord says, "Just breathe. You're all," and he makes a face that Caleb can't see, but Caleb knows the sound of his faces and starts to laugh, every bit of the body between his knees shaking with it, and the tops of his ears go a pretty shade of pink. He tilts his head, lays one cheek on the pillow so they can look at each other.

"I'm just saying," and it's soft enough to not catch if Fjord didn't hang onto every word out of that mouth, "I'm not opposed to that arrangement. If you aren’t." 

 _I was afraid_ you _wouldn't return_  Caleb had said, but—   
(Gray-blue eyes like the crests of waves, like before a storm, like the ocean breaking before the mast and the trail it leaves behind.

His patron is some deep-sea entity, all tentacles and Eye, but Caleb's are what he thinks of when he thinks of home.)   
But where else would he go?

He leans down, kisses the cheek available to him, lets his thumbs sink into a rhythm at the meat of Caleb's shoulder, considers.

"I wouldn't-" and how can he say this? "I'm reasonably, well I mean that—aw hell," because fuck it, "I'm the monogamous sort, Caleb," and there's the exact wide-eyed reaction he was trying to avoid, "If you let that mark heal, I won't get to do it to anyone else. And orcs are, you know, pretty fuckin' possessive. To a fault, I guess. I'd expect, well, I'd expect some reciprocation on that."

Caleb is skinny, so so skinny that it makes him nervous sometimes, skinny enough that even with Fjord's weight on his back he can flip bellyup. He braces himself with one arm as he sits up, wraps the other around Fjord to bring him close, touches their foreheads together,  _tsk_ s his tongue playfully, presses a peck to his lips, "I'd expect nothing less," he says, leans in for more but Fjord shakes his head.

"There's a lot," he explains, "There's a lot of, uh, stigma I guess, that would go with it. It's something that," and this is physically painful for him to describe, this is his half of his heritage but it's not a pretty side of it, "It's a claiming mark. I'd—you'd be claimed by me."

Caleb's head cocks like a bird's, one eyebrow arches in a clear prompt.

"I just," Fjord grumbles with a sigh, "You're your own man, darlin'. I don't want ya to feel obliged."

He watches the thoughts go through Caleb's head, wonders if there's a spell to hear them as Caleb's eyes fade into the middle distance and back a few times. Caleb, who's been to prison and barely survived. Caleb, who loves to be manhandled in bed but has occasionally sunk into panic over it, will not admit but shows every sign of a man that leans to submission and has paid a heavy toll at someone's hands.

Caleb, who is so clever, so strong, who has fire in his veins that he hates to weaponize.

Fjord marked him in a moment of passion without a thought, without  _permission_ , but Jester could still heal it up nicely, leave no trace that it ever happened.

(He would gladly lay down his life in defense of this wonderful, self-depreciating, too-skinny human mage. He'd love to see the shape of his teeth, a sign and reminder of his devotion, in Caleb's throat forever. He meant it last night when he promised:  _I will always come for you._

Caleb trusts him, and he desperately wants to be worthy of it, and claiming him as if he is some ownable  _thing_  has not been a good start.)

When Caleb's eyes fade back into the current, there's fondness to them. He leans back, puts some distance between them, and it makes Fjord's entire heart go brittle, but he lets him go. Caleb's arm around his neck tightens as the one braced against the bed comes up, and his fingers are so light against his own skin when he touches the mark there.

Still swollen. Not yet scared. Would have made for a pretty one.

"That," he says, and it's not the tone Fjord expected at all, "Doesn't sound too bad at all." He turns a bit so Fjord can see the mark more clearly—he'd cleaned it, of course, doctored it enough to be sure it heals, but it's still a hell of a bite. It'll scar for sure if it's not magically attended to.

(He loves it, truly and honestly and stupidly, he feels like a giddy kid thinking about it. He loves it madly and passionately and obsessively and it's only been a few hours.   
How much will he love it tomorrow? How will he ever get anything done with the sight of this mark against Caleb's pretty pale throat in his mind?)

He swallows, tongue suddenly too thick for his mouth, licks his lips, says, "You needa eat breakfast, first."

Under him, there are  _parts_  of Caleb that disagree. Between them, more obviously, there's bit of Fjord that does too.

Caleb wiggles his hips because that's the sort of man he is, arches that same high eyebrow, says, "They'll still be serving food later."

He's right, of course. And it's not every day that they have the leisure and luxury of an inn.

Besides, it's a cozy bed. That's why they're still in it.

**Author's Note:**

> You guys have been so supportive over on The Leaving, but I just needed a day of writing something cute and fluffy and calm before jumping back into that! I hope this is sufficient as an offering!!


End file.
